and omen although nice is not necessary with voice coms, which every raider uses, and target of target somewhere on your screen.

OFC is it not necessary (otherwise no boss would have died in Vanilla ), but it makes life way easier. Raiding with tanks that generate way less threat than they do nowadays (and the threat generation was already increased a lot in TBC - in Vanilla it was way worse) and no Omen is like a full boss mechanic beeing there by default.

Same with the issues with healer mana in Vanilla or the healing cd rotation. This are things that are not listed on any list of mechanics, but have always been there.

And I love how some compare MC, the entry raid, the raid where everbody had to learn what raiding in WoW is about, to the last tier of the current expansion.

Karazhan raiders couldn't even clear sunwell trash even if they had the gear to do it most of the time. That's trash, now imagine them trying to do Kalecgos. Now imagine someone doing a fight in LFR, then going and doing the SAME FIGHT on heroic just with bigger numbers and one more ability. The difference in ability - not to mention the spike in sheer difficulty - is astronomically different. I haven't raided top tier content since BC (or wotlk really but I don't count 30% buff H ICC top tier even if it was 12/13 heroic) and I guarantee you if I joined a raid with a bunch of heroic raiders and did these same fights on heroic it would take 1...maybe 2 attempts to figure them out and I'd be good to go.

There is literally no comparison between the two things you listed, learning heroic encounters is a joke compared to learning new tier content from vanilla/BC.

Lolwut ?

Do you have any idea of how big a gap there is from LFR to Heroic ?

Do you think an average LFR raid would get through SWP trash ??!

Here is a hint, the trash is exactly the same difficulty on normal and heroic these days. SWP trash was tuned heroic, like the bosses - but trash isn't retuned any more.

I've spent 16 hours a week raiding progression early in BC, and in retrospect I don't really see why it was so hard.

What exactly was hard about vashj that it took some guilds 3-5 months to kill her (aside from doing like 1k dps and the inability to use an item) while nihilum/whatevertheguildthatbrutforcedthebuggedencounter were using crafted 115 blue gear and epic tailoring/bs patterns?

Was it seriously so hard to kill a green water elemental and throw a tainted core to someone without taking an eternity? The guild wiping so much on vashj would've probably wiped endlessly on a lootbag like ultraxion.

....

Are you serious?

You do realise Nihilum killed Vashj nearly 3 months after release, yes? 3 MONTHS. That's completely unheard of these days. And it was HEAVILY nerfed, along with Kael'thas, who took even longer to kill, a few months later. They were brutally unforgiving fights. And please, please don't pretend Nihilum wasn't a good guild compared to todays' standards, because that's just ridiculous.

Were bosses back then harder than bosses now? Normal for normal, of course they were. Heroics today in my opinion are easily harder than most of the bosses in Vanilla/TBC. Besides Vash'j and KT, I'd say only Twin Emps, C'Thun, The Four Horsemen, Kel'Thuzad, pre-nerf Gruul and Mu'ru would match up to todays' hardest heroics.

Those fights were utter nightmares. Twin Emps and The Four Horsemen killed more guilds than you can imagine. Even Vael killed countless newer guilds. Gruul pre-nerf was INSANE - 1 tick of shatter and you're dead. C'thun was virtually impossible to kill for months. Mu'ru was possibly the hardest boss the game's ever seen. I never saw Kel'thuzad pre-nerf, but so few guilds killed him - mustn't have been easy.

OFC is it not necessary (otherwise no boss would have died in Vanilla ), but it makes life way easier. Raiding with tanks that generate way less threat than they do nowadays (and the threat generation was already increased a lot in TBC - in Vanilla it was way worse) and no Omen is like a full boss mechanic beeing there by default.

Same with the issues with healer mana in Vanilla or the healing cd rotation. This are things that are not listed on any list of mechanics, but have always been there.

And I love how some compare MC, the entry raid, the raid where everbody had to learn what raiding in WoW is about, to the last tier of the current expansion.

I had very little responsibility during early raids as I was just another huntard. Although I was a huntard that was competative if not better than the majority of mages on my server.

Farm pots
Farm resist gear
farm wepon enhancement "wizzard oil, sharpening stone etc"
farm food
farm for your buff by killing countless animals in balsted lands (DAMN YOU BASILIK BRAINS)
Farm as many tubers in felwood as you could
Get "that new guy" atunement
Run DM for that other new guy that is missing gear
Farm for cloth so you have bandages
Farm gold for repairs

I spent more time farming for Vanilla raids than I do for todays raids by far! I gladly take the 10 mins to read a strat on icy veins for a couple mins and watch a spe/class apropriate pov for the fight I'm about to do > all that damn progress farming!

Remeber Nefarian during progress? WHO didnt get there invul potions? GG how are you going to live through skellys now?

OFC is it not necessary (otherwise no boss would have died in Vanilla ), but it makes life way easier. Raiding with tanks that generate way less threat than they do nowadays (and the threat generation was already increased a lot in TBC - in Vanilla it was way worse) and no Omen is like a full boss mechanic beeing there by default.

Same with the issues with healer mana in Vanilla or the healing cd rotation. This are things that are not listed on any list of mechanics, but have always been there.

And I love how some compare MC, the entry raid, the raid where everbody had to learn what raiding in WoW is about, to the last tier of the current expansion.

If you had a semi competent tank threat wasnt an issue after about 10-15sec. If they had the legendary it was faceroll. Threat was only a problem when you had bad tanks or DPS that had to start before the tank could position the boss and get 3 sunders.

Farm pots
Farm resist gear
farm wepon enhancement "wizzard oil, sharpening stone etc"
farm food
farm for your buff by killing countless animals in balsted lands (DAMN YOU BASILIK BRAINS)
Farm as many tubers in felwood as you could
Get "that new guy" atunement
Run DM for that other new guy that is missing gear
Farm for cloth so you have bandages
Farm gold for repairs

I spent more time farming for Vanilla raids than I do for todays raids by far! I gladly take the 10 mins to read a strat on icy veins for a couple mins and watch a spe/class apropriate pov for the fight I'm about to do > all that damn progress farming!

Remeber Nefarian during progress? WHO didnt get there invul potions? GG how are you going to live through skellys now?

Farming doesn't equate to difficulty.

I still have nightmares about Loatheb, though (only people who did it know what I'm talking about).

"There are two types of guys in this world. Guys who sniff their fingers after scratching their balls, and dirty fucking liars." -StylesClashv3

Originally Posted by Kalis

Not finding-a-cock-on-your-girlfriend-is-normal level of odd, but nevertheless, still odd.

Farm pots
Farm resist gear
farm wepon enhancement "wizzard oil, sharpening stone etc"
farm food
farm for your buff by killing countless animals in balsted lands (DAMN YOU BASILIK BRAINS)
Farm as many tubers in felwood as you could
Get "that new guy" atunement
Run DM for that other new guy that is missing gear
Farm for cloth so you have bandages
Farm gold for repairs

I spent more time farming for Vanilla raids than I do for todays raids by far! I gladly take the 10 mins to read a strat on icy veins for a couple mins and watch a spe/class apropriate pov for the fight I'm about to do > all that damn progress farming!

Remeber Nefarian during progress? WHO didnt get there invul potions? GG how are you going to live through skellys now?

Or you could be in a good guild that payed that out to their core rooster. We earned so much money from BWL and out, selling 10-15 spots in MC each week. The only thing you needed to farm was the tubers and demonic runes in Felwood(they werent really needed anyways)

Regarding Nefarian. Stacking all the healers so the skellies come towards them and then aoe them to bits was a much better tactic

I had very little responsibility during early raids as I was just another huntard. Although I was a huntard that was competative if not better than the majority of mages on my server.

I've been healer through whole Vanilla, Healer as main in TBC (still Shaman) and as an alt and backup tank a Pally in TBC.
Officer in my guild in Vanilla and few months in TBC, til my guild decided to go hardcore and I founded my own "semi-casual" raid guild.
I know the hardcore raiding part since my bf was officer in a hardcore guild during Vanilla and TBC.
I quit WoW for a year after maybe one month after Ulduar release when I realized that there is no longer a place for raiders like me. I love challenges, I love wiping for weeks on a boss, I love tuning my char, I love farming resitance gear, potions, readings tactics, tuning my UI ... but I don't enjoy the requirements of hardcore raiding. So I'm a mascot in a successfull hardcore raiding guild since Wrath and although they want me to be a full raider, is this heroic raiding too time consuming and hard for me.
And while I can live almost all changes is this what I can't forgive Blizzard. They simply removed a whole "type" of raiding.
As other have already stated - the gap between normal and heroic is just too big.
For me it's boring to kill 4 bosses the first week on normal and then only come back to farm for gear (never been an itemwhore - I always only considered it as a tool).

So long story short: I still remember a lot from Vanilla, TBC and beginning of Wrath. I still have some of my tactic posts, guild rules, videos ... here.

I still have nightmares about Loatheb, though (only people who did it know what I'm talking about).

O I agree but I was asking because the poster I quoted said they did all teh work "IN RAID" in vanilla and not on youtube ... teh vanilla equivalent to reading a lot of strats and watching vids was countless hours of farming!

If you had a semi competent tank threat wasnt an issue after about 10-15sec. If they had the legendary it was faceroll. Threat was only a problem when you had bad tanks or DPS that had to start before the tank could position the boss and get 3 sunders.

That's nonsense. Tanks generated way less threat than today. That's a simple fact.
And it was common to wipe because someone critted too early and dps always had to be careful.
When we killed Kael in TBC we "borrowed" a tank (their MT) from a hardcore raid guild (actually the top guild of our server - our own MT had an accident and Kael required lots of tanks). He was decked in epics and still did the DPS have to watch the threat meters. Ask maybe a good rogue about how often they died because of crits

And during Vanilla was it especially during the lower tiers common to wait quite some time before starting to heal / dps. You really seem to forget that loot was not this available back then.
During whole Vanilla did not a single Hunter T1 leg drop for our guild for example and we only got 2 legendaries.

But yes, ofc, if you have been in a hardcore raiding guild with all people in quite equal gear, then threat was not as much of an issue as for the normal raider. And ofc was threat not an issue if you were dragged through MC by a guild that had it on farm. But I'm talking here about the average progressing guild and their everyday life.

Raiding now is pretty... lackluster at best. It seems now they just throw more aoe at you and more damage, and have dumbed down alot of "complex" classes to be relatively simple. BC was the last of my "fun" as a raider. Ulduar was ok, ICC was fun, but the whole "Kill everything twice for heroic mode" really dulled the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Laily

That's nonsense. Tanks generated way less threat than today. That's a simple fact.
And it was common to wipe because someone critted too early and dps always had to be careful.
When we killed Kael in TBC we "borrowed" a tank (their MT) from a hardcore raid guild (actually the top guild of our server - our own MT had an accident and Kael required lots of tanks). He was decked in epics and still did the DPS have to watch the threat meters. Ask maybe a good rogue about how often they died because of crits

And during Vanilla was it especially during the lower tiers common to wait quite some time before starting to heal / dps. You really seem to forget that loot was not this available back then.
During whole Vanilla did not a single Hunter T1 leg drop for our guild for example and we only got 2 legendaries.

But yes, ofc, if you have been in a hardcore raiding guild with all people in quite equal gear, then threat was not as much of an issue as for the normal raider. And ofc was threat not an issue if you were dragged through MC by a guild that had it on farm. But I'm talking here about the average progressing guild and their everyday life.

I remember having to vanish on cooldown because of threat... with combat daggers even with Thunderfury on the tank.

That's nonsense. Tanks generated way less threat than today. That's a simple fact.
And it was common to wipe because someone critted too early and dps always had to be careful.
When we killed Kael in TBC we "borrowed" a tank (their MT) from a hardcore raid guild (actually the top guild of our server - our own MT had an accident and Kael required lots of tanks). He was decked in epics and still did the DPS have to watch the threat meters. Ask maybe a good rogue about how often they died because of crits

And during Vanilla was it especially during the lower tiers common to wait quite some time before starting to heal / dps. You really seem to forget that loot was not this available back then.
During whole Vanilla did not a single Hunter T1 leg drop for our guild for example and we only got 2 legendaries.

But yes, ofc, if you have been in a hardcore raiding guild with all people in quite equal gear, then threat was not as much of an issue as for the normal raider. And ofc was threat not an issue if you were dragged through MC by a guild that had it on farm. But I'm talking here about the average progressing guild and their everyday life.

Threat was never an issue, giving tank 5-10 seconds for 3 sunders was plenty time to get constant top threat on basically all but dragon bosses, if the tank wasnt completely retarded. and for dragon bosses, there was KTM. And even in the occasion of a screwup, all it took was for the overaggroing dude to turn the boss away from raid and let the tank get aggro back, because most early bosses werent hitting that hard and you could offtank them as >=leather wearer for extended periods of time.

... and have dumbed down alot of "complex" classes to be relatively simple.

In what way? Every class I have played is more complex now then in BC/Vanilla days. There are more abilities, more cd to manage, more rng effects to look out for etc. Everyone has more things to do to get the job done.

But it still boils down to "dont stand in the graphics effect on the ground". The only time this got more difficult was at the beginning of Cata when they introduced beneficial aoe effects on the ground and now you actually gotta know wether you have to move into or out of the AoE effect. Apart from that it's dps and dont stand in the fire. Ok, ok, you gotta pick carefully which target you dps, but you can hardly call that complex.

Threat was never an issue, giving tank 5-10 seconds for 3 sunders was plenty time to get constant top threat on basically all but dragon bosses, if the tank wasnt completely retarded. and for dragon bosses, there was KTM. And even in the occasion of a screwup, all it took was for the overaggroing dude to turn the boss away from raid and let the tank get aggro back, because most early bosses werent hitting that hard and you could offtank them as >=leather wearer for extended periods of time.

LOL...if only a 5-10 second lead was truely adequate. AS a freaking boomie in vanilla I could and did occasionally pull threat if I wasn't careful...and boomie wasn't even a very viable spec back then. Took a lot of farming to get the consumables to manage the mana issues.

You could offtank it as leather if you were a rogue with evasion up LOL.